Not much sleep, unfortunately. and when I did sleep,
I dreamed I was having difficulty sleeping. and then I had a weird dream
about some guy who had made it his life's work to bug me.

I'm writing this at the turn of yet another L O N G switchback
on the way to the top of New Army Pass. I'd forgotten, of course, how
long of a climb this thing is. Still far preferable to Trail Crest at
Whitney, at least as far as altitude goes.

...

I'm just yards shy of the crest now, but I've paused
to wait for Mom. She can be the first over the pass today. The view
from here is incredible, though, as Mom said earlier, "This is
an ugly basin!" Indeed, there's more rock here than I've seen anywhere
in a long time. Most of it's worn down to sand and rubble, lending the
place its particularly intense wasteland attitude. Long Lake sparkles
far below, and I'd like to comment on its breathtaking beauty and the
sheer amount of space between it and ourselves, but I'm thinking about
the carrot cake Clif Bar that's in my pack. Difficult to concentrate.

Here comes Mom..

We left camp at 8:10. From then till 10 was hard work.
The last bit, up over a bit of snow to the top of New Army Pass, left
me winded and weak. I am now resting at the top now (10:10), eating
and drinking. I should have tortilla with peanut butter before a pass
not after!

A vast rockybasin

Still Far from the Top

A dramatic pause

The Hilary Step

Will on the Pass

View West

Getting over that last lip of the
ascent proved to be a little tricky and resulted in my getting a little
snow in my shoe and Mom's sudden hyperventilation, which lasted a good
ten minutes or so. But we chilled for a bit atop New Army pass and twenty
minutes later, were on the trail again.

The drop into the basin
behind the pass was grueling. It was a sandy, hot, exposed drop down
into a ravine, which we negotiated with next to zero conversation. I,
alas, had one particular song by Liz Phair in my head that absolutely
refused to leave no matter what YES opus, RUSH song, SPACEHOG ditty
or LOW-FIDELITY ALL STARS jam I heaved into my consciousness to replace
it. I have a pretty musical memory and if I want to call up a song,
can usually do so, and play it from beginning to end. And I have thousands
of songs at my disposal, so I don't usually have much of a problem with
repetition. Why then, was this particular song cycling on perpetual
repeat??

Of course, now that
I'm sitting here, writing about this, and all a sudden I can't think
of that song anymore. I've got a SPACEHOG song on endless repeat! Oh
yeah, it's the one that goes, "I can hear the Russian army comin'
through my head/blah, blah, blah.../she's a psychosomatic sister runnin'
'round without a leash/blah, blah, blah.../I won't leave your mystery
unfurled..."

Anyway, we dropped into lush meadowlands
at last and came upon two breathtaking vistas, the likes of which one
might have guessed existed below the cracked haunches of Langley Peak.

Noon- We ate lunch on a
large flat rock in the shade in trees by a stream. It took 1 ½ hours to
come down a dry, hot basin. I just made Gatorade and soaked my feet. It's
now 12:30- we'll get going soon.

A Beautiful Meadow

Checkin' da View

Wide Open Space

At this moment
I'm cleaned up, dried off, hydrated and slightly sunburned. I'm sitting
on a rock above Lower Rock Creek. I'm either too hot or too cold, depending
on whether the sun has been tackled by a cloud or not, and there are an
awful lot of them up there. Terrible sentence. Much worse than I'd imagined
it, so I'm going to take a break and see about dinner.

5:30- After
lunch, we went down down down. Some very pretty meadows along Rock Creek.
We passed by our original destination lake- complete with bench and campsite-but
it was early and we wanted to cover as much ground as we could. We crossed
the creek and started looking and found a likely campsite- grassy, flat,
near water, but we went on to another. I had my shoes off and was looking
for water when Wm came back and said it was too far away and boggy. So,
back on with the boots. Soon we met the PCT and hiked the 1.1 miles to
Lower Rock Creek Ford. I saw a coyote on the way. This campsite is in
the woods, near water, private but with people nearby. I took a cold shower
and Will bathed in the tent. My shoulders are very sore now so I just
took 2 Aleve. My feet were starting to feel like hamburger- but no blisters
yet. Pea soup for dinner tonight. Hope I sleep well- last night I didn't
sleep much. It was a hard day today. long, plus the pass.

Writing in the journal

Tent at Rock Creek

Campsite

Dinner: pea soup with rehydrated Canadian bacon.
And somehow, that filled me up.